New Budget Boosts NIH Funding

Congress passed a budget Sunday night that funds the government through the end of September. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) received a $2 billion increase in the new budget, which was a surprise given the fact that President Trump wanted to cut the organization’s budget by close to $6 billion according to his budget proposal. The increased budget includes provisions for several key research areas, such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and precision medicine. The bill also includes $800 million for the Centers for Disease Control to fight the nation’s opioid epidemic. See this article in the Washington Post for a summary of the NIH’s new budget.